


Friendly Fire

by Solstice0612



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s04e08 The First Ones, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 14:23:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3732157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solstice0612/pseuds/Solstice0612
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gen. Summary: Tag scene for “The First Ones” (s4e8). Daniel had much of what he wanted but then it all vanished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friendly Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This is my very first response to a writing challenge (Events Horizon, Season Four Challenge). This text was not betaed. I apologize for any mistakes. Stargate SG-1 is no my property. I’m just borrowing it for a while for a bit of fun.

“Jack, can we stop at the dig?”

 

“Just for a moment. You are due at the infirmary.”

 

“OK. Is Robert there too?”

 

“No. I’ll take you to him on the way back. We gotta hurry. I wanna get to the Gate before nightfall.”

 

With Sam on point and Teal’c closing up the rear the members of SG-1 walked through the forest at a steady pace. Neither Sam, Teal’c nor Jack wanted to talk and kept mostly to themselves. They had nothing good to report and the Gate was still a few hours away. Home beaconed them as P3X-888 had so badly failed to meet their safety expectations.

 

The mid afternoon sun turned the leaves of the tall trees into green gold. Daniel walked looking at the forest around him, recognizing at times places he had passed before, but mostly mulling over the events that had taken place since his arrival to the planet.

 

It had been an exhilarating dig. For the first time in his professional life he was able to share with a trusted colleague some of the wondrous riches that the Stargate program had opened to their field. They had relished running a most professional dig, keeping a full log of every shard of anything that could be considered even remotely interesting. It had been so long since he had been able to be a true archaeologist instead of a cultural interloper on the run, always grabbing whatever he could on the fly, always leaving behind the wonders they encountered without much of a backward glance. This time he got to play in the dirt and lovingly unearth with the soft touch of a brush an ancient fossil Robert had named Cleo.

 

This dig was different. Robert had helped him take his research to a level of scientific rigor he had not been able to achieve since he had joined SG-1. He had waited for so long for the opportunity of figuring out the origin of the Goa’uld. If they could better understand their development they could also find a potential weakness. Without Robert’s superb expertise in physical anthropology such a project would had been impossible.

 

“Jack?”

 

“Daniel?”

 

“Did you say Robert went back to the SGC to get you?”

 

“Yeah, he did.”

 

“Was he able to take some of the fossil samples back with him?”

 

“There was not time.”

 

“Can we go back to the dig?”

 

“Only for a moment. The sun is setting and it is not safe.”

 

“Right.”

 

Chaka had really messed things up with the dig. He had forcibly taken him away and dragged him for miles until they reached his lair. But in the way something amazing had happened.

 

He had been able to open up communication with a totally different species, breaking down barriers that often separate beings with vastly different languages and uneven stages of development. He had made friends with an Unas. He had gone from being a hunted trophy, perhaps even an edible pet, to becoming a friend worth of being protected from the leader of Chaka’s clan. What a remarkable turn of events!

 

From the beginning, Daniel had allowed himself to be patient and show a degree of sensitivity to the predicament of his relatively young captor. By the fire of their campsite he had allowed himself to be playful in his interactions with Chaka, which had resulted in the most unlikely of friendships.

 

The presence of the Unas in the planet would probably force a few changes in the tentative conclusions that he and Robert had reached during their excavation.

 

Robert was not going to be happy; at least at first, but then he would come around and see what a great opportunity they had for learning about the Unas and the place of such misunderstood creatures in the long history of the galaxy. He could not wait to tell Robert about Chaka, about the cave paintings and the rituals that the Unas followed.

 

“Jack?”

 

“Yes Daniel?”

 

“Is Robert at the dig crating things up?”

 

“No.”

 

There was something off in the tone of Jack’s voice. Daniel suddenly felt the cold fingers of fear chilling his insides. He sensed something bad had happened, yet he wanted to be wrong. He noticed the silence of his friends and their determination to move through the forest and reach their destination without delay.

 

“We are almost there,” said Sam.

 

“Let’s make a stop at the campground near the lake,” ordered Jack, “Daniel, we’ll talk there.”

 

Daniel knew something really bad was about to go down and steeled himself. He trusted Jack and did not push the fragile membrane between fear and certainty with any more comments or requests or questions. Jack understood heartache and would bring him to whatever lay ahead and be there for him.

 

As the sun moved towards the horizon, the group reached the lake and the two mounds that covered the bodies until the medics retrieved them for final burial on Earth.

 

“Daniel, I am sorry, Robert is dead,” said Jack, never one to mince words.

 

The sharpness of the hurt cut Daniel at the knees and he dropped in front of the graves, simply marked with two sticks, one holding up a helmet, the other one a bandana tied at the top. The archeologist sat on his talons, as he had done so many times during the dig, and let his head fall forwards but no tears came. His pain drowned him in a cottony numbness. He closed his eyes.

 

“What happened?”

 

“I killed him. There was no other way.”

 

“Jack, how could you…?”

 

“Robert came to get us when the Unas took you away. I tried to make him stay at the SGC but he insisted; he wanted to return. During the night he and Major Hawkins were infested by the local Goa’uld. It was dark and we didn’t know there were symbiotes in the lake. Robert tried to kill us with a staff weapon. I had no choice. I am sorry Daniel, I know he was a good friend.”

 

His eyes still closed, Daniel nodded.

 

“What about the rest of SG-11?”

 

Jack closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed.

 

“They are dead too. This place is teeming with symbiotes.”

 

Daniel struggled to breath, to keep the bile down in his empty stomach. Yet his mind could not stop reeling disoriented by the attempt of making sense where there was none to be made. For a brief moment, it seemed that the Fates had gifted him so much of what he wanted but it had all suddenly vanished.

 

Against all odds he had gained an unexpected new friend, but at what terrible cost? The promise that these young men represented, these soldiers who for weeks had patiently worked with him, side by side, had turned to ash. One of his dearest colleagues, his own comrade in arms in the good fight for knowledge and understanding, was taken by a Goa’uld and then killed by his best friend.

 

If only he had left Robert where he was, in a nice teaching job, safe and sound... He had doomed everyone.

 

“Robert really liked being out here,” said Jack. “Everyone knew the risks and chose to be here, just like you and me, Daniel. Don’t take that away from them.”

 

“Jack, I can’t do this to anyone else. I’m done. No more off-world digs. It’s over.”

 

Sam came forward. She had something to say.

 

“I am so very sorry Robert is dead. He gave his life to help us protect Earth. We must keep searching for answers until the threat of the Goa’uld is eliminated.”

 

Daniel nodded. He knew she was right. The Goa’uld had taken so much from him and now Robert was gone along with everyone else at the dig. But he did not want to think about honor and duty. He felt tired to the bone.

 

He got up and dried up the few tears that had escaped his saddened blue eyes.

 

Jack put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder and Teal’c stood by his side giving him his silent support. Sam came a little closer.

 

Daniel would endure the devastating losses of the day and grieve, but not alone. His team was with him.

 

\--Fin--


End file.
